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Speaking German to natives | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| LebensForm Senior Member Austria Joined 5050 days ago 212 posts - 264 votes  Studies: German | Message 1 of 42 03 August 2011 at 6:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Okay, so I just want to know, I have heard different things about speaking German to native German speakers, one, they are perfectionistic and if you make mistakes with the language, they will prefer to speak with you in English, and then I heard two, that many Germans don't even use the right case themselves, and they are nice people and will speak German with you.
Now, does it just depend on who you speak with? That is my guess, I know that not all Germans are one way or the other, there is gray area, but if I go there and want to improve my German, speaking with natives, I don't want to be so scared of making a mistake when speaking, I do enough of that with English lol. So can someone give me a little more perspective on this. Thanks all. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5320 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 2 of 42 03 August 2011 at 7:11pm | IP Logged | |||||
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You shouldn't worry about this too much. I just had English speaking visitors and even though their German was very limited the only time people switched to English was when they made too many mistakes and the other guys just wanted to make sure that they understood them correctly.
Actually, it's more likely that people will want to speak English with you just to practice English with you. Therefore you should make it clear that you'd rather speak German. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| LebensForm Senior Member Austria Joined 5050 days ago 212 posts - 264 votes Studies: German | Message 3 of 42 03 August 2011 at 7:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Okay, thanks, I feel a little better now lol. But I understand, them wanting to practice English too.
I guess I'm a bit perfectionistic too, but I don't want to get too caught up with the grammar stuff either, becuase then I would make mistakes. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| osu_shredder21 Triglot Newbie United States Joined 4902 days ago 6 posts - 8 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Turkish | Message 4 of 42 06 August 2011 at 3:46am | IP Logged | |||||
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I've never had much trouble with Germans switching to English on me unless they are older
and want to either show off their English skills or practice. In my experience, most Germans are happy to help, and I've heard native speakers argue over which case to use before too, so do your best, but don't beat yourself up if you use dative rather than accusative or whatever it may be. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6085 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 5 of 42 06 August 2011 at 4:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
Many have learned Eng in the school (total 7 years on average) and hardly get the chance to practice it, let alone speak to a native! they're probably just eager to try out their Eng. If they appear "perfectionistic" it's probably because they tend to learn languages very academically (French, Eng. Latin, mainly) -- language study in the school is way heavy on the grammar here. It's probably wrong for me to generalize but in my experience, the older Germans are less likely speak Eng whereas the younger ones have to have it. So maybe it's worth a shot to try out different language partners to see where you have the most success.
I'm also a perfectionist and I admire anyone who can throw caution to the wind and just start speaking!! From what I've observed by watching Europeans learn to speak Eng is that communication is not an art form. It's more like throwing a bunch of stuff together to see what works, then trying again. I've had people tell me that the best thing is when they can learn to say the same thing different ways, especially if their speaking partner doesn't understand them the first pass. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Tecktight Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member United States Joined 4976 days ago 227 posts - 327 votes Speaks: English*, Serbian Studies: German, Russian, Estonian | Message 6 of 42 06 August 2011 at 7:22pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I guess it might be different in Germany, but when I was in Vienna last week, I scarcely used a word of English. I
wasn't expecting to use my German at all, really, because a) Vienna is such an international city I figured everyone would want to speak English, anyway, and b) My German is still on a really limited/broken level. Still, I got around just fine on German, and no one ever switched to English on me (unless I initiated the switch). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Keilan Senior Member Canada Joined 5086 days ago 125 posts - 241 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 7 of 42 08 August 2011 at 12:01am | IP Logged | |||||
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The case thing you mentioned is probably (according to secondary sources, I have not been to Germany myself) that Germans are beginning to replace the genitive case with the dative case. It's a natural language process, and eventually the genitive case will begin to sound archaic (like words such as "whom" and "whence" in English). So that's your call whether or not you want to speak proper formal German, or try to pick up what the locals are doing. :) (For me, I'd like to reach the point where I can do both depending on the situation)
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| JLA Triglot Newbie France Joined 4897 days ago 25 posts - 33 votes Speaks: French*, English, German Studies: Italian, Spanish, Russian, Dutch | Message 8 of 42 08 August 2011 at 5:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I went to Germany 25 years ago after learning German with a 40 lessons "teach yourself" book (without any recordings, I could not afford them). No need to say that my German was very far to be good. Despite that, most people I met were very nice and did their best to understand me and answer me in Hochdeutsch (I was near Stuttgart, and the local dialect sounds very different than the usual "what you read is what you hear" characteristic of the German language.
In fact, the most difficult thing you will be facing are dialects. German dialects are very much alive (and it is good so I must say) and, at first it's quiet challenging to build a bridge between what you hear and what you are expecting according to your "Hochdeutsch" knowledge. But overall, German people are really nice and willing to do their best to help you understand them, and do their best to understand you. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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